“Hmmm, hmmm, let me think…”
I knew what she wanted. She wanted me to say “yes” and then she had me. “Let me see… Hmmm. Hmmm.”
“Yes?” she said.
“Oh oh! My god!”
“What is it?”
“It’s either drunk in auto or drunk driving. About 4 years ago or so. I don’t know the exact date.”
“And this was a slip of the mind?”
“Yes, really, I meant to put it down.”
“All right. Put it down.”
I wrote it down.
“Mr. Chinaski. This is a terrible record. I want you to explain these charges and if possible justify your present employment with us.”
“All right.”
“You have ten days to reply.”
I didn’t want the job that badly. But she irritated me.
I phoned in sick that night after buying some ruled and numbered legal paper and a blue, very official-looking folder. I got a fifth of whiskey and a six pack, then sat down and typed it out. I had the dictionary at my elbow. Every now and then I would flip a page, find a large incomprehensible word and build a sentence or paragraph out of the idea. It ran 42 pages. I finished up with, “Copies of this statement have been retained for distribution to the press, television, and other mass communication media.”
I was full of shit.
“Yes?”
It was 9 a.m. One day after her request to answer charges. “Just a moment.”
She took the 42 pages back to her desk. She read and read and read. There was somebody reading over her shoulder. Then there were 2, 3, 4, 5. All reading. 6, 7, 8, 9. All reading.
What the hell? I thought.
Then I heard a voice from the crowd, “Well, all geniuses are drunkards!” As if that explained away the matter. Too many movies again.
She got up from the desk with the 42 pages in her hand.
“Mr. Chinaski?”
“Yes?”
“Your case will be continued. You will hear from us.”
“Meanwhile, continue working?”
“Meanwhile, continue working.”
“Good morning,” I said.
4
One night I was assigned to the stool next to Butchner. He didn’t stick any mail. He just sat there. And talked.
A young girl came in and sat down at the end of the aisle. I heard Butchner. “Yeah, you cunt! You want my cock in your pussy, don’t you? That’s what you want, you cunt, don’t you?”
I went on sticking mail. The soup walked past. Butchner said, “You’re on my list, mother! I’m going to get you, you dirty mother! You rotten bastard! Cocksucker!”
The supervisors never bothered Butchner. Nobody ever bothered Butchner.
Then I heard him again. “All right, baby! I don’t like that look on your face! You’re on my list, mother! You’re right there on top of my list! I’m going to get your ass! Hey, I’m talking to you! You hear me?”
It was too much. I threw my mail down.
“All right,” I told him, “I’m calling your card! I’m calling your whole stinking deck! You wanna go right here or outside?” I looked at Butchner. He was talking to the ceiling, insane: “I told you, you’re on top of my list! I’m going to get you and I’m going to get you good!”
O for Christ’s sake, I thought, I really sucked into that one! The clerks were very quiet. I couldn’t blame them. I got up, went to get a drink of water. Then came back. 20 minutes later I got up to take my ten minute break. When I got back, the supervisor was waiting. A fat black man in his early 50’s. He screamed at me:
“CHINASKI!”
“What’s the matter, man?” I asked.
“You’ve left your seat twice in 30 minutes!”
“Yeah, I got a drink of water the first time. 30 seconds. Then later I took my break.”
“Suppose you worked at a machine? You couldn’t leave your machine twice in 30 minutes!”
His whole face glistened in fury. It was astounding. I couldn’t understand it.
“I’M WRITING YOU UP!”
“All right,” I said.
I went down and sat next to Butchner. The supervisor came
running down with the write-up. It was written in longhand. I couldn’t even read it. He had written in such fury that it had all come out in blots and slants.
I folded the write-up into a neat package, slipped it in my rear pocket.
“I’m going to kill that son of a bitch!” Butchner said.
“I wish you would, fat boy,” I said, “I wish you would.”
5
It was 12 hours a night, plus supervisors, plus clerks, plus the fact that you could hardly breathe in that pack of flesh, plus stale baked food in the “non-profit” cafeteria.
Plus the CP1. City Primary 1. That station scheme was nothing compared to the City Primary 1. Which contained about 1/3 of the streets in the city and how they were broken up into zone numbers. I lived in one of the largest cities in the U. S. That was a lot of streets. After that there was CP2. And CP3. You had to pass each test in 90 days, 3 shots at it, 95 percent or better, 100 cards in a glass cage, 8 minutes, fail and they let you try for President of General Motors, as the man said. For those who got through, the schemes would get a little easier, the 2nd or 3rd time around. But with the 12 hour night and canceled days off, it was too much for most. Already, out of our original group of 150 to 200, there were only 17 or 18 of us left.
“How can I work 12 hours a night, sleep, eat, bathe, travel back and forth, get the laundry and the gas, the rent, change tires, do all the little things that have to be done and still study the scheme?” I asked one of the instructors in the scheme room.
“Do without sleep,” he told me. I looked at him. He wasn’t playing
6
I found that the only time to study was before sleeping. I was always too tired to make and eat breakfast, so I would go out and buy a tall 6 pack, put it on the chair beside the bed, rip open a can, take a good pull and then open the scheme sheet. About the time I got to the 3rd can of beer I had to drop the sheet. You could only inject so
